‘Battlefield’ on the social media, Israeli army disarmed

“As the Jewish people prepare for the Passover, we wish the Jewish community to chag sameach to all,” he wrote, now reading a deleted message, a Star of David, and a loaf of bread.

The image of food specifically banned in the Passover created a fire storm on social media in the tweet of a party struggling with allegations of institutional antisemitism.

Answers ranged between angry and witty. Participating in this struggle was the Israeli army who tweeted the message “Happy Holidays” with a similar picture containing the official account matzah, Easter egg, and some typical Muslim architecture.

The reactions in social media were mixed. Some users have described the pressure of the IDF on British politics as ı pure Jewish humor Bazı. Others, who contributed to the Jerusalem Post’s editor Lahav Harkov, said, “IDF is inappropriate on social media av It is not really their place. ”

Israel’s reporter, the Judas Ari Gross newspaper, Times suggested that the tweet exceeded a limit.

Tı Only the Israeli army is randomly involved in another country’s domestic politics, d he tweeted.

In recent years, the @IDF Twitter account has started to adopt social media vocabulary with an audience of 1 million audiences, using language, memes and, in particular, for large corporations managed by the state.

The IDFadırs social media team is aware of its frustrated and sometimes controversial brands. Earlier this year, team leader Major Keren Hajioff revived this fame and released pictures of his soldiers dressed as trolls – a nickname for social media users who love to eat their enemies.

This bright and sometimes intersecting approach, Alji Landes, a former soldier in the IDF spokesperson unit, who was responsible for dragging the army into the social media arena during Cast Operations Operations in 2008, said there was a radical departure from the oldest ranks of the army to social media. Landes and his comrades, initially acquainted with the repulsion of commanders who were initially suspicious of social media, were not even allowed to tweet without permission from the highest levels.

The only thing allowed by the IDF spokesperson, who is a brigade, to be able to tweet without permission, was that we sent a beep. “ It’s totally ridiculous if you look at our previous tweets. The army would expect Twitter to follow the language of the army rather than working on Twitter. I am very proud of the small project that I started, it was so great and it is managed by some excellent people. ”

Stating that the IDF asked the Labor tweet, Landes said that ın although he is a great believer, people should stay on the topic in their area of ​​expertise ID. The IDF managed to draw a lot of attention, and “if this is the target then they reach their goals. ”

The IDF certainly managed to attract attention. He recently celebrated millions of followers with a tweet that says ”We have 99 problems, but we don’t have 1 million followers on Twitter ‘. one.”

According to Gross, the army’s social media approach may have been out of sight but may be due to efforts to fill a gap left by the Foreign Ministry and the Office of the Prime Minister.

“These various government departments are aware of the IDF’s provocative social media activities and clearly acknowledges them,” the journalist said. This is not a neglect situation. It is also not the case of someone who inadvertently or unintentionally exceeds their limits. This is an active decision. The government knows what is happening and the IDF is not told to stop. ”

Humor and mockery look like the layout of the day. Tweeting of about 900 times contained a video showing Facebook’s automatically generated Happy Birthday messages on a tweet. In the IDF version, members of several terrorist groups have been very happy with the return of Qasem Soleimani, the president of Iran’s Quds Force. At the end of the clip, the cake explodes.

In response, a reporter III. World War II with weapons, but IV. He said he didn’t know that World War II would fight the memes.

He tweeted about 10,000 tweets and received more than 31,000 admirable tweets, a rough map of the Middle East that seems to have been crafted in the primitive style of MS Paint. He showed Syria an arrow pointing to where Iran was ait and ’belonging to Iran’.

Although some of the IDF’s choices have led to criticism, his online fighting tone, along with journalists such as i24 news, helped reporters released September’s “we can add IDF Twitter’s account to the deadly arsenal of Israel,” he reported.

His best-selling book, Battle in 140 Characters, says David Patrikarakos, a British journalist who has prevented the rise of IDF’s social media team.

Ları The biggest problem of institutions is that they are far from risk, “he said. ”The taste can sometimes appeal, but humor works.“

Patrikarakos sometimes said that he crossed the line, but being in balance is better than being nervous and being in harmony with the vehicle you work with. This is something that the IDF social media unit is very right about.

Lt. Colonel Jonathan Conricus, the spokesman of the IDF, who sometimes explains why he decided to use a cynical voice on social media, said his unit was trying to adapt to the media we were operating in and use the tools we had. ID best to achieve our goals.

The IDF said it is investigating the boundaries. ID As you plan and evaluate the soldiers what is appropriate, you don’t know what a “trial and error process” and “what is good and what is acceptable. What you frowned until you did. ”

Concirus said the flexibility in social media is very important to JTA regarding the qualification of the unit as its qualifications.

I grew up as an infantry, “he said. ”Adapt its activity to the battlefield and the layout of the land.“

When asked whether the IDF has any directives to avoid political matters, the spokesman said that de everything is valid for the situation ”and that social media is being given quickly, those who are willing to take the opportunity and to some extent have preferred those who are willing to take risks.

Conricus recalled an incident in which a Parliament Worker member tweeted a video that allegedly claimed that Israeli soldiers had beaten a Palestinian. The video is from Guatemala.

Perhaps in the past, some people felt that it was not the IDF’s place to respond to the apology and demand an apology, but we consider it our duty to fight against different efforts to empower IDF in the traditional media. and online, mostly on Twitter.

At the end of the day, he said, the goal was to strengthen Israel’s “soft power” by expanding its online presence. But the only way to do that is that you’re active and engaging, broadening your horizons, and sometimes you’re discussing it, the IDF said.

Former IDF spokesman Peter Lerner remembers an earlier era of social media.

When I was in charge of social media, it was expected that organizations and institutions with size and influence were expected to show a certain degree of statism and to show some degree of statism, Yahudi the Jewish Telegraph Agency said. The reality is a little more complicated than that, and the IDF is very good at communicating in this way. “

Lerner said the Army was not a fan of the worker’s thin crust but said he generally believed his successors had done a good job pushing the boundaries.

However, the new approach of the IDF has upset some people working in pro-Israeli advocacy.

I can understand why they want to be funny and entertain people, but sometimes they’re losing the fact that it’s a professional organization responsible for the use of lethal force, Kamu said a social media expert working on public diplomacy. He asked him not to be named in a way that would not harm his relationship with the IDF.

”It’s a joke about using deadly force, he said, and something that can be seen Asia and immature.“